Creating a Voice in Poetry :: Reports Poetry Poems Literature Essays

Creating a Voice in PoetryDiscuss how the poets create voices in their work. Write aboutReports and wiz(a) other poem.The poem Reports boil downes on one teachers cynical approach on writingschool reports. This didactic poem take full advantage of using theimperative and pragmatics, as well as manipulating graphologicalfeatures, such as the practice session of italics to indicate quotations. The poemis also written as a monologue, showing one side of a conversation,allowing the reader to focus on the opinions and character of anindividual... in this case the school teacher. Similarly, this methodis used in Carol Ann Duffys poem Head of English, taken from StandingFemale Nude. The poem Head of English makes good use of writtenlanguage, creating the tone of a pompous school teacher but also usespunctuation to give the reader an idea about the character portrayed.Head of English shows one characters disdain for another, heretoforethe reader is only meant to visualise the seemingly over confidentHead of English. Duffy uses a monologue style to allow the reader to plunge with the teacher in question and allows the reader to empathise(although not sympathise) with the voice in the poem. The poem openswith the lineat once we have a poet in the class.On a surface read through this opening line could be intended toenthuse the pupils, however in my opinion this remark shows subtlehints of sarcasm, however unintentional or subconscious these may be.Grammatically the sentence structure suggests that the teacher is tothe point, there is no indication of a break between Today and wealthough, the reader would expect a teacher to be taking her time andwould at least expect to see a comma. As well as this the full stop atthe end of the line adds emphasis to the sentence and brings it to anabrupt end, or so definitely a purposeful move on the subtract of thepoet, to suggest to the reader that the character in the poem isabrupt. The hints of sarcasm are then backed up betw een lines threeand five, when the teacher says Perhapswere breathing out to witness verse hot from the press.Who knows.The first sentence suggests that the teacher is testing the poet. Onthe surface it seems as if she is trying to enthuse the pupils,although the pragmatics suggest that she is testing the poet, almostchallenging the poet. Then the second sentence, Who knows., backs upthe readers thoughts of the teacher. Intriguingly the poet hasmanipulated the language again by using a full stop to end a sentencethat would normally be a question.